Janita's dower

Front matter

Class_ TZ^_,

Book _ . • Iry (a c^' ^

CopghtN?

Chapter I

“ A child of our grandmother Eve, a female ; or foi thy moie sweet understanding, a woman.”

Love’s Labor Lost.

I HAD spoken harshly as was my wont when deeply moved, and Susy turned on me one swift glance of reproach. Then, with chin uplifted, stood tapping four dainty fingers upon the window pane and gazed out into the gathering twilight.

In truth Susy was pouting, but as the slave of her merest whim, I must admit that it was the most delectable pout ever witnessed.

Could you have seen her as she stood thus, you would not have doubted me, although a lover’s statement is apt to be given over to hyperbole. The softest of creamy skins, with the color in her cheek like the Bonseline roses that bloomed in my aunt’s garden. Hair, not the red-gold which artists admire, nor the ordinary blonde, but soft mellow masses, coiled about a shapely head. Eyes earnest and gray and usually full of a peaceful happy light, but clouded now by love’s reproach. A charming nose, and a mouth — ah ! the limitations of the language preclude my describing Susy’s mouth. A delicious ghost of displeasure perched upon her lips now, for which I was responsible.

I had committed treason and I was very miserable. When a youth is nearly twenty-five years of age, and has been betrothed five years, and sees the prospect of matrimony growing ever more dim, it is hard to be teased even a little by the dear object of one’s affection.

Susy had laid a hand upon the jangling chords of jealousy within me, and in a torrent of despairing angry words I offered her her freedom. Hence the pout, and tapping finger-tips.

She was loyal and I knew it. Not a drop of blood that flooded my darling’s cheeks would play me false, and this knowledge should have staid my foolish words. In the silence I felt the injustice that prompted me to speak to her thus.

“ Susy,” I began, meekly.

The fingers ceased a moment.

“ Well,” she said gently.

“ You are an angel.”

Her fingers took up the very devil’s tattoo again as she replied :

“ Oh no, I am not, John. Not the least bit of a one. I^am a little demon ” '

“ Susy, Susy,” I urged, reproachfully. “ You are only justly angry with me. I am a very rash man, and have already flung aside much happiness. Pity and forgive me, dear.”

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She looked at me doubtfully a moment, then her sweet gray eyes were dimmed by tears, and I knew I had won the day and only need kiss those bright drops away to have her entire forgiveness.

“ Jack,” she said, after the necessary reconciliation was effected, and her head was so comfortably close to my coat that the soft cheek brushed the rude fabric. “ Jack dear, I have been thinking about our house to-day, our home.”

“ Well, dear? ” I returned as she paused meditatively.

“ In the twilight, John, before you come home, we are going to leave the curtains looped back.”

“ Yes, that I may see the cheery light as I approach the house. And so, Susy, we build our ‘ Castle in Spain,’ ” I concluded, with some bitterness. Susy put her hand on my lips and proceeded slowly.

“ Yes, our castle in Spain, if you choose to call it so, although I cannot think why you should say Spain. It must be a very unpleasant place to live in. Bull-fights and horrid spiders, and such jealous men,” she concluded, with such an aggrieved glance at me, that I laughed a little.

“ Love in a cottage then, you dear, ignorant little woman. Your ideas of Spain are evidently not clearly defined. But have you made any change in our domestic arrangements since we last decided that the cottage should have green blinds ? ”

“ Oh yes. I have decided it must be red — deep rich red, to catch the light, so you can see the glow when you approach the house.”

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“ What is to be red, Susy ? I confess you perplex me. Not the cottage? and I hope not your dear little face, because I love it just as it looks now, and ”

“Oh, Stupid! don’t be foolish. I mean the table-cover, of course, and the lamp in the center.”

“ And the tea set of silver, which Aunt Mildred will never give us, Susy. There, don’t cloud over that sweet face. I know one thing. The dearest, darlingest little wife in all the world will be near that table ready to pour the tea for. ^ the ^ most worthless, yet fondest of husbands.” '• ■*- .

I followed my words with the degree of punctuation lovers always find necessary to round their periods.

“ Won’t it be nice. Jack? ” she cried, her arms about my neck.

“Very, Susy. What you girls term ‘lovely.’ But it does seem hard to have to grind so right up to Christmas eve. It would have been infinitely wiser on my part not to have quarreled with Aunt Mildred.”

“ But, Jack, the principle of the thing.”

“ Humph ! ” I rejoined grimly. “ Principle doesn’t help me to any of life’s comforts. I fear on my part it was principally stubbornness.”

“ John, do you really think so? ” Susy is grave and earnest. •

“ Perhaps not that altogether, Susy. I had my reason for not wanting to spoil a good scamp by making a poor preacher. However, it is all over now. Poor old soul, I did love her, better than I thought I did.”

“ Then, John dear,” said Susy resolutely, “ go to her

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at once, and beg her forgiveness. She loves you still, or she would not be so bitter against you. Your pride and strong will stand between you. Overcome yourself, John, and go to her. Harold can contrive an interview ”

“ What ? and fall on my knees, crying dramatically, ‘ Forgive and forget, I am )'^our child.’ No — ^no, Susy. She would think me a miserable poverty-stricken youth. Perhaps persuade Harold to show me the door, as a last dose of gall and wormwood. No, sweet, I will never submit to that. Willoughbys neither forgive nor forget hard words. Aunt Mildred has banished me forever. My brother glories in my former estate. I have sold my heritage.”

I spoke with increasing acrimony, and Susy was silent, evidently pained by my tone.

“ Harold never glories in his present position. You wrong him. He is distressed to have been chosen in your stead,” she said finally. “ Nothing has grieved him like the threatened estrangement between you two who until the last two years have been such devoted brothers. Aunty, too, shows her recognition of your right to rebel against her demand, in that she has never asked Harold to give up his career for that of a theologian.”

“ She has profited by one experience, and hesitates to rouse - the same blood again,” I replied proudly. “ Harold is not a fool to be turned from his course for a woman’*s whim. His will is more unbending than mine, but he knows better how to win his way. But

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enough, Susy! I must depart. Give me another kiss and look more cheerful. There! I will come early Christmas eve, and help deck the tree for the youngsters.” For Susy had some small brothers and sisters, who tormented us outrageously, yet we were weak enough to love them fondly.

“ Thank you, John,” Susy returned, but detained me. “ I wanted to say that — I — told Harold he could come if he would, and help us also Christmas eve. He seemed so pleased. You do not mind? There is no real trouble between you ? ”

Her eyes, full of pleading, were seeking my evasive glance.

“ Where did you see Harold ? ” I asked, rather coldly.

“ He met me last evening as I came from church. He seemed so sad and was so pleased when I asked him to come home with me. John, you must not let this question of money arise to make a division between you.”

“ I have never condemned my brother, Susy, for accepting a good offer, or profiting through my loss. I sold the birthright fairly. There was no advantage taken ”

“ John ! ” There were tears in Susy’s tone now, and she drooped her head.

“ Ah ! Susy, my dear love, look up and never weep over two such undeserving fellow creatures as Harold and John Willoughby. I confess the iron has entered into my soul — but I love the boy too well to give him

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over to Aunt Mildred entirely. Does that satisfy you ? ”

“ Not entirely,” she replied^ smiling, however.

“ It must until we meet again. , Good-by, little peacemaker.”

“ Promise me one thing, John, that you will try and cultivate a spirit more in keeping with this season. Do not brood over not being able to make money faster. You are really growing envious and avaricious, coveting your neighbor’s wealth. By the time we are married, John, you will be like old Cradberry Adams ”

“ Oh spare me, sweetheart, I promise anything and everything.”

“ Dear boy,” she said softly, giving me a self-reproachful embrace to compensate for her dark prophecy. “ I could not love you better if you were rich as — as — who was the man who turned everything to gold ? ”

“Midas, my dear?”

“ Now you are making fun of me ; he had asses’ ears, I know, and ”

“ And I haven’t? Thank you, Susy.”

“ Now, John ! Well, perhaps he did turn things to gold too — but I think I meant Croesus. At any rate, I could not love you better, if you owned a whole mint, so there ! ”

To which unclassical, but altogether wise conclusion, I responded with much enthusiasm, and Susy then followed me to the door, and I departed. Not without,

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however, many glances over my shoulder for another glimpse of her bonny face.

Was there ever a lover who did not sympathize with Orpheus ? And I — alas ! under what circumstances of trial and doubt was I to see my darling’s face again.

On I strode in the dusky winter evening, the snowflakes falling like dainty blossoms upon me while I crushed thousands of the same wintry flowers beneath my feet.

The streets were thronged with people hurrying to warm firesides, and pleasant family gatherings.

In 1825, Brooklyn was but a small place. It was not until nine years later that it was invested with the name and privileges of a city. Still it was large enough to make a bustling thoroughfare of Fulton Avenue, which at this time did not extend six blocks beyond the present locality of the City Hall. All the stores were crowded into this portion of the town, and this night many were doing their Saturday night’s marketing. The streets were bright with lights streaming from store windows, and as I strode along, I soon found myself drifting into the mood Susy had warned me against. Bitterly did I revile the circumstances that found me fortune’s slave, instead of her conqueror.

I realized my poverty more keenly as the Christmas season advanced. We were an English family, but had always adopted with those English observances of the Yuletide, the German and Dutch custom of presenting one another with gifts. It is practiced largely now, I believe by all Americans, save in New England,

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where I think I have been told it is a custom only slightly observed.

Every quaint and pretty device I saw I longed to bestow upon my darling, and it was the inability to gratify her that made me deplore the decision which had deprived me of my Aunt Mildred’s vast fortune. Nor bad my life up to a year and a half ago, been calculated to make me in love with poverty, and to-night as I thought over those years of plenty, I closed my teeth together with a sharp sound that bespoke regret and anger. Not regret for my own conduct, but for all it involved of loss and deprivation.

No! I reflected, I must never regret the decision which proved my manly purpose and strength. At least I had acted from a noble motive in refusing to follow my aunt’s desires, but there had always rankled in my conscience the doubt whether our angry separation was not due to my own undisciplined nature.

When my father died, leaving me a lad of ten and my brother five years of age to the care of his brothers and sisters, I realized, young as I was, the demand which would eventually be made upon my abilities as a man, to mali^ the small income left us educate my brother as well as myself.

Those were days when children were taught to follow the train of thought established by their elders, and my father had impressed upon me in his last lingering illness, that Harold was to be my first care. For three years following my father’s death, we were transferred from one family of relatives to another,

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and in those days of necessary restraint, I recognized the contradictory principles laid down for us to follow and missing what makes home so desirable, the steady hand of absolute authority, I soon became a law unto myself. Not that I developed any traits of character wholly lawless or abominable, but I was wilful, violent in temper, and bubbling over with animal spirits.

At this time my Aunt Mildred Willoughby, a widow, returned from abroad. Three times she had assumed matrimonial fetters, and each time the links were golden.

Thus at middle-age, immensely wealthy, eccentric and whimsical she was an irritation and delight to her relatives. One of her whims was always to be known by her maiden name. So after wedding in succession Brownlow, Stafford and Gould, she was known among her friends as Mrs. Mildred Willoughby. Sometimes complications arose, and the name would then be written Willoughby-Gould. But Willoughby she would be.

“ It is nonsense this thing of a woman losing her lineal right to her father’s name,” she would say. “ I am a Willoughby, and marriage can confer no greater honor.”

We were then living with a cousin of my mother’s, Mrs. John Sidney, of Brooklyn, Susy’s mother. Aunt Mildred was at once attracted by what she termed my “ Willoughby spirit.” She did not pause to reflect that in a not far distant future the indomitable pride she beheld in the child might rise to confront her, and lead to infinite pain and bitterness.

Harold, with his sonsie face, dark eyes, and sweettempered laughter, did not call forth her admiration, although he had the promise of far more beauty than I possessed. I was a Willoughby in complexion, having fair hair and blue eyes, and my resemblance to my aunt was striking.

So the question of my adoption was discussed in family conclave, and it was decided that Aunt Mildred’s offer to make me her heir was not to be refused. I had already fully weighed and decided the question, before being told their decision. For I reasoned that Harold could have all father left us for both and thus have a college education, for in my day this latter means of attaining knowledge was like a much desired Paradise.

So I was parted from my brother, and entered on my new life, with a strange aching at my heart, at the separation. Many a time I awoke during the first year, feeling over the pillow for the dark head of my little brother, and I then would sob myself to sleep upon finding it was not there.

I remember once in a passion of grief, I twisted my fingers in the lace on the pillow tearing it into shreds. I was too proud to acknowledge these homesick moods, that tortured me, for fear of being thought unmanly.

Harold meanwhile lived with Aunt “Sidney. I never lost an opportunity of seeing him. Sometimes I ofi6

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fended Aunt Mildred by this pertinacious affection. She was jealous, and exacting, and as I grew older, I began to feel the trammels of my position, Harold had chosen art as a profession. He was wrapped up in his future, narrow as his education had necessarily become, because of the meagerness of the sum left by my father, and while I wanted for nothing, and was lauded and feted as my aunt’s heir, I was yet made to feel how helpless I was to give Harold the aid he needed. I was still writhing under a harsh blow she had dealt my pride, in rebuke for having given Harold an advantage hitherto denied him, when she broached a subject long dear to her heart. She wished me to enter a Theological school at once, and study to take orders.

The idea seemed to me a preposterous one. I had always been a reasonably devout churchman, but had my inclinations not been against such a career, my conscience would have cried out on my unworthiness to ever fulfill such an office.

I had chosen my career, I was in love with the life faintly shadowed forth by the last year at college. I was determined to breast a troubled sea of printer’s ink, and launch forth in literary pursuits. I refused determinedly to meet her views. We were both hot tempered, and my curt refusal led to a breach that widened into an estrangement.

Then she sent for my brother. She knew how I loved the lad. Sfie distressed him by an account of our last interview. She was sincerely heart-broken and

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mourned me persistently as one dead to her. She defeated all Harold’s efforts to defend me, by madly bewailing my ignoble conduct. Poor fellow ! he knew so well my hot-blooded resentment, and reckless moods, and while he knew in the main I was acting from a true motive, yet he felt my refusal had been ungracious and ungrateful.

She then begged him to take my place. She was old and lonely and through his brother she had been rendered more desolate. She had learned to lean upon me, when behold! the staff had broken. Harold was only twenty years of age. He was very tender-hearted and had learned to love my aunt because she had been so kind to me. He wanted to loyally serve both. He pleaded my cause earnestly, then came to me in great distress. I was as curt with him as I had been with my aunt. I was still hot with passion, at the words uttered by my aunt in her interview with me. I let my brother depart looking dazed and heartsore ar my harsh language, and the sun set upon my anger.

The following day found Harold again in my presence. Manly, gentle, my superior by a thousand graces, he came to sue my pardon, and beg my counsel.

I bowed down before this gentle spirit humbly. I went with him to my aunt, trying to cultivate a reasonable and dispassionate judgment on the way, in order to deal with the question about to arise.

But alas ! only an infinitely more trying scene ensued, but I succeeded in saying right boldly and sincerely i8

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that I hoped she would find in Harold all I lacked of obedience and love.

She forbade me ever to enter her presence again, and I left her house with a heart much heavier than my purse, and faced the world all the more grimly that up to this hour I had only basked in her smiles. My brother came to me at once, oflfering to transfer the slender income I had relinquished when my Aunt adopted me. I refused it disdainfully, checking all advice and sympathy. I procured a position which through my dogged perseverance soon led to a better one. I was now on the staflf of one of the leading New York journals, conducting the branch office in Brooklyn. I was impatient, however, at the delay of my marriage and my inability to make money faster.

Harold had quietly transferred to me the principal of our father’s income, and I had in my usual haste invested it in some mines in Western Pennsylvania, and as yet they had failed to make any return.

My aunt had highly approved of my engagement to Susy Sidney, but now being angry with me she partially withdrew her favor from Susy. Susy still went to see her at stated intervals, and endured with stifled indignation her tirades hurled at my defenseless head.

I had never seen my aunt since she so utterly renounced me, but I was thinking of her now, with a degree of grimness only equaled by my former affection for her.

Susy’s words were full of wisdom. Where so

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much bitterness remained, the old affection still survived. Indifference is love’s only real enemy.

As I passed down Fulton Avenue, I came upon one store that seemed especially to taunt me, with its bright window. There was a ring therein which Susy longed to possess and I was powerless to procure it. Verily, in my half angry mood, I endowed the glittering silver and gold in the window with life, and fancied the whole array gave a vicious wink of triumph at my inability to enter and secure the ring. In fact I was so far from obeying Susy’s parting injunction that I was fast burying myself in covetous longings, convinced that I was the most ill-used man in all Brooklyn. I was hurrying past the jewelry store, vindictively plunging my hands into my overcoat pockets, when a hand fell on my shoulder, and a cheery voice exclaimed :

“ John, old boy, are you running a race with the wind ? I have been chasing you for half a square.”

It was my brother. Tall, dark and handsome, he half leaned against me, panting, a smile displaying his firm white teeth, as he grasped my arm. I responded with enforced heartiness. We had striven very hard of late to avoid all unpleasant topics, and to especially ignore the gulf that lay between our positions. It is needless to say Harold succeeded better than I did.

“ What brings you out at this hour, Harold ? Are not these the moments usually devoted to a dinner toilette, or have you forsworn fashion’s fetters, and returned to your former erratic artist hours ? ”

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“ I — that is — I dined early to-day. I was in hopes of finding you on your way to the office,” he replied. “ The truth is, John,” he added, as if anxious to have a disagreeable task over, “ I thought you might want to borrow a little money of me. I know what it is to be short — and — ” he paused, faltering a little as he saw my brow darken — “ I want also to beg you to sell out that stock you have in those mines. It is going down with a crash before long.”

I did not reply at once. I had no desire with Susy’s words still ringing in my ears to wound my brother by the hasty reply that rose to my lips.

“ Thank you, Harold, but you know I seldom borrow money. It is a bad practice. Let me warn you against it.”

I spoke with a sarcastic dryness, and although I pretended to be looking straight ahead of me, I saw that Harold colored to the roots of his hair.

“ But the stock ? ” he urged persistently.

“ It is as safe an investment as can be made,” I replied. “ Kennedy has his money in it, and with all his spiritualistic predilection, you must acknowledge he is safe in a business transaction.”

“ In that, I grant him a very materialist,” returned Harold, dismissing the subject in a manner that betrayed his vexation.

“ How is Susy? ”

“ You should know. You saw her yesterday,” I returned shortly.

Harold was certainly not quite frank with me to-day,

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and I was only too quick to resent it He turned a quick glance upon me now.

“ Yes,” he said, “ I saw the little woman yesterday, as she returned from church. She looks as bonnie as ever, and has invited me to join the holiday festivities at home. Home it always will be to me. I presume you will also be present ? ”

“ Without doubt. ' I cannot conceive why you and Susy should think I would be otherwise than glad to meet you there,” I returned, a little testily. “ I am no dog in the manger. I love my brother as heartily to-day as ever. A man does not forget his life-love in the first hour of trial and adversity.”

“ Spoken like yourself, John ! ” he said heartily, “ and so like the good old days of yore, that it gives me courage to ask a favor of you.”

“Of me? You? Now, come, Harold, I will have none of your money.”

“ No, no, I will not offend in that manner again. But I want to get Susy some trifle, as a Christmas gift, and not long since I heard her express a desire for a certain ring set with turquoise, she had seen in a jeweler’s window. I want to give it to her. I will not do so without your permission, for you have a pre-empted claim on our sweet cousin.”

It was a hard moment for me. This was the gift I had so longed to give my darling. The very desire which had raised the storm of battling thoughts within me just before meeting my brother. He wished to give her a trifle! It had come to this between us!

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What should I reply?

“ Susy will be delighted,” I returned, quietly, laying a strong hand on my bitter reflections.

“ I may secure it then,” said Harold, in a tone of gladness, that rewarded me for my self-control, “ and you will help me choose it, John? She will think more of it, when I tell her this in giving it to her. Come, let us return at once ; we have passed the store.”

We retraced our steps, and I tried hard to stifle the rebellious voice within me, as Harold chatted merrily.

“ Yellow’s forsaken,

Green forsworn, ''

Blue is the sweetest,

Color that’s worn.’

“ You remember old ‘ Festus,’ John, and the couplet and Susy’s blue eyes testify to the truth of the rhyme. Bless me, I believe I am more sentimental now than you are, you cold lover.”

“ To a fault,” I replied, rather glad to laugh at him, “ since Susy’s eyes are gray and not blue.”

“ Blue, I’ll swear it,” he cried, stopping a moment in his astonishment.

“ Then be forsworn as any green-eyed lover, for Susy’s eyes are grayest of gray.”

“ But tinged with blue-gray like the ocean at sunset, ready to waver into a reflection of the sky at dawn. Grant me this ? ”

” I grant you are color-blind,” I returned amused at his discomfiture.

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“ I’ll eat my hat, if they are not blue,” he murmured, and then we entered the jeweler’s together.

Harold’s eagerness in selecting the ring, and his constant quarrel with me regarding our late discussion, carried on in a way to mystify the jeweler, did not deter my thoughts from reverting to the pledge exchanged between Susy and me, a plain old-fashioned topaz, set in pearls. It had been my mother’s ring. In the early days of our betrothal she had worn it, because she liked the association. Later I wished to change it, but she would not consent to a finer jewel.

“ I do not care for jewels,” she said, “ but I do care that your mother once wore this.” And so the matter passed.

The ring was chosen at last to Harold’s satisfaction, and the dainty device of turquoise and pearl placed in its box. Harold was anxious the box -should also be blue and was so innocently and eagerly happy over the selection, that the jeweler could scarcely repress a smile, and fathoming his thought, I was more than pained to find a jealous pang shake my heart.

As we lingered, waiting for the package, some one entered the store and bustled up to us, with an important air. ^

“ Ah ! Mr. Kennedy,” I said with some warmth, for I was always glad to see my old friend, and at this moment his presence offered a sense of relief.

” My dear boys ! ” he responded somewhat breathlessly, “ just the luckiest thing in the world that I met you. I saw you come in here, and have been waiting

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to waylay you. Well, Harold, purchasing a gift for your sweetheart ? ”

“ No,” laughed Harold, with a mischievous glance at me. “ I have no sweetheart save my cold mistress. Art. But I am sometimes granted the privilege of bestowing my paltry gifts on other men’s sweethearts.”

The speech jarred on me. I started to speak, but checked myself, and Mr. Kennedy came promptly to the rescue.